As the Knesset election campaign goes into the final stretch…

Three postings of interest as the campaign for Knesset #18 goes into its final two weeks:

1) The Jerusalem Post spotlights the Green Movement-Meimad with coverage of the campaign kickoff event two weeks ago:

“Change starts here,” No. 2 Eran Ben-Yemini declared, “But actually it began 10 to 15 years ago, when we established many of the biggest environmental organizations in Israel.”

Ben-Yemini founded Green Course, while fellow party member Prof. Alon Tal founded The Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.

“When we started out, nobody even knew what ‘the environment’ was. Now we’ve turned it into one of the biggest items on the national agenda,” Ben-Yemini told the crowd.

Meimad head and No. 1 on the combined list Rabbi Michael Melchior stressed the need to prevent security from dominating all other issues.

“We cannot let the older parties use the security issue, no matter how important it is, to once again bury education, environment and social issues.

“When all of the other Knesset members race towards seats on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the least important committee in the Knesset, we will be running towards the education, social affairs, finance and environment committees,” he thundered.

2) In the Hebrew press, YNET exposes the author of a rogue website, which was trying to masquerade as the homepage of the Israel Green Movement last summer. The site attempted to portray the Green Movement in an extremist light. And who was behind the site? Meital Revino, who just happens to be running for Knesset on the Green Party list (#20). Note that this blog did its best NOT to engage in badmouthing the Green Party, but I thank YNET and journalist Ehud Kenan for exposing this. For Hebrew readers, the article is here. On our “About” page in the comments section on the bottom, I try to define the differences between the Green Movement-Meimad and the Green Party.

3) Finally, the television campaign began today. Below is the Green Movement-Meimad’s first commercial – clearly aimed at helping the voters distinguish between the environmental party (us) and the faux greens (them). Enjoy!